Abstain from ALL Drugs in order to recover! Be Cautious of ALL drugs.

Abstain from all drugs in order to recover! Be cautious of all drugs

OK, I thought my addiction was purely alcohol based. Boy was I wrong!

I’m currently 192 days free from alcohol, but recently I was caught out by prescription medication. Not good. But a good read I think?

I have been on anti-depressants for many years. Two types, sertraline and mirtazapine. Also numerous other medication to a total of 30+ tablets a day. Sounds a lot? That’s what I thought. So armed with my copy of the BNF I made an appointment to see my GP for a medication review.

Now my doctor and I have a love hate relationship. He hates me, and I love questioning his judgement and knowledge on prescription writing.

“That’s not playing the game fair JPG-B”, I hear you saying. Well I say fair play is not my game when it comes to my recovery.

This is not an easy blog for me to type, but I will give it all of my honesty, open mindedness and willingness.

I thought that once I had made my mind up to stop drinking and had gone through my detox and rehab at Park House, all would be fine. Nope!

I thought that all my problems and issues would soon be over with. Nope on that one too! I never gave all those years of blurred out memories, pain and suffering, caused to myself and others around me a second thought.

I never did mourn my brother lost to addiction. Or my divorce due to my alcohol addiction. Not forgetting the loss of access to my son. Loss of jobs, cars, my house, respect, self worth and the trust of my parents. Did I?

So OK. Let’s go back 10 weeks or so. In my head all was going well in my recovery. I was abstinent or ‘clean’ as they say in the rooms of the fellowship I go to. No alcohol or drugs for four months and I felt great. I did feel great, didn’t I? It is a dog isn’t it?

Well yes and no to that one. I kept telling myself I was feeling great and everyone one around me kept telling me I was doing great and was looking great too. So yeah, I’m fine and all recovered. I even managed to get through a TV interview and a couple of radio interviews telling the whole ‘world’ that I was doing fine.

Wrong JPG-B! I was a total mess. From the outside I looked well, dressed well and presented myself professionally very well. I seemed to be ticking all the right boxes for the right people in my new set goal. To become a drug worker.

On the inside though, I was torn with pain, anxiety and 20 years of emotions that had previously been blocked out by alcohol or some prescription ‘legal’ drug.

That seemed to hit me like a nine iron hitting a quail’s egg (softly boiled). All of the above had hit me and hit me hard. I had begun to sink lower in my depression. I became so overwhelmed with all sorts of feelings and emotions that I never thought I had. And it was very painful. Like a raging fire burning through my whole body.

No way was I going back on the beer to dissolve these feelings. Not this time. Not me. I was achieving the impossible, I was clean. So I put myself into anything that would preoccupy my mind and distract me from my head. Because I didn’t like the things that my head was telling me.

I was doing some volunteer work in the field of substance misuse, going to 5-9 meetings a week, meeting people in the fellowship for coffees and found myself not being able to say no to anything that would take me out of my own head space.

I was having suicidal thoughts, self harming dreams, injecting dreams (I have never injected) and was crossing roads not caring if a car, bus or anything hit me. My head was telling me that I was scum, low life, and waste of space. That I might as well end it all.

I was aware of all of this, and to be honest, a bit scared that I may well carry out one of my dreams or thoughts. I sort of convinced myself that it was all down to the medication I was on and had been on for many years. I was cured of my illness/disease a long time ago. I had decided to stop all medication, apart from my sodium valproate and disulfiram.

Yeah JPG-B that was a wise move. Not! I then went to my GP for a review, not telling him that I had ceased most medication, and told him about my still occurring thoughts and dreams. He referred me to a counsellor who in turned referred me to see a psychiatrist.

In between appointments I was now self medicating on my anti-depressants, my mother’s co-codamal and I had acquired some diazepam 5mg’s, and was taking them as I saw fit. A recipe for disaster in the making.

After leaving a session with my counsellor one Friday, I was feeling particularly down and raw so thought I would medicate myself with some diazepam. Just 2×5mg’s. To cut a long story short, I ended up taking over 40×5mg’s tablets and, fortunately for me, I ended waking up in a poisons unit. I felt like my last car, crashed, battered, rusty and unwanted.

I just wanted to get out of the hospital but the nurses told me if I walked then they could section 5 me. So I had to stay to see the home treatment team. Once seen by the team, they reassured me that episodes like this do happen, and that they could help me so long as I agreed with them that my parents would supervise all medication.

As I left the hospital, I felt like such a failure all I could think of was getting drunk. “I may as well. I have messed up big time now”. But, on this occasion, unlike all my other attempts at getting clean where I failed and relapsed big time, I didn’t.

I don’t know how or why. I just didn’t make it to the off-licence right opposite the hospital. Nope. This time I went home to my parents sober.

The welcome I received was amazing. My mom so was happy to see me alive and ‘almost well’. She didn’t judge me or comment at all on what I had done. She just hugged me, no words, just a hug like no other hug I had ever had off her in my entire life (to memory). And then we both cried and hugged some more.

Two days later I had a visit from R.M from Park House (Birmingham). He had come to see me and check that I was OK. And what was more special to me was that he also came to see and ask my mom if she was ok. (Thank you R.M, nice touch).

One hour later I received a phone call from R.M asking if I would like to go back into Park House for a few days. Just for a respite. A short break away from the madness that I was in mentally. A, chance for me to gain a bit of well needed me time.

A chance to reflect and have a long, and yes, still painful look at myself, my life and where I went wrong. Things I could change, approach differently or totally cut out of my life.

I ended up staying at Park House for a week. I took part in all the groups and adhered to all the rules just like every other service user had to. No special treatment. I went back to basics and even restarted my step one work in there.

My time in Park House was, in my view, a life saver. Without it I’m pretty much sure I would have gone through my last relapse ever. A major relapse, from which there would have been no return.

I would have died a drunk, like I had thought I would for many years. I would like to thank every single member of the team at Park House, Phoenix Futures, Inclusion, BDAAT and every single service user who was going through treatment during my time spent back at Park House. I owe you all my life and my parent’s sanity.

I would also like to thank every member of the fellowship, for there support and help in my extremely difficult time. With a special thank you to those few (you know who you are), who spent countless hours at my bedside and a big thank you to ‘M.S’ (you know why) whilst I was recovering from this (accidental? intended?) suicide attempt.

It came so out of the blue. I still have no clue why or how it happened. Although I was aware that I was taking too many tablets at the time.

On a closing note, I would like to say to anyone out there who is going through a similar situation, not to choose the path I did. Help is out there, all you have to do is ask for it.

I have over 40 phone numbers of people in the fellowship and 20+ more names and numbers who I could have reached out to. Not to mention those people close to me and my heart.

Pride can be a dangerous thing to hold too close. Please scream out for help as loud as you can and as soon as you can. There is no pride in dying. I was lucky, you may not be so.

Today, I’m still ’dry’ and taking all of my medication as and when prescribed. I’m taking life in the slow lane. I’m still attending meetings but not as many as I was, and continuing to work the programme.

My volunteer work will continue as soon as I have gained a little more inner peace within myself. My goal in life, to become a drug worker, is still the same. Just this time around I will walk the path to it, at life’s intended speed. Not run the thousand miles an hour that I was trying to.

God bless you all. Life on life’s terms.

Thank you for reading, and sorry it was so long.

Stay safe and happy. Recovery is sweet.

JPG-B xx